So I need to write a one-page essay about Japan (in english, I'm just mentioning the topic as it may give some ideas) and was wondering if there was a nice template for such a thing (otherwise I'll just end up formatting things in ms word, since I'm so short on time).
What I find not so good in \documentclass{article} for this case is that it leaves a huge blank space at top, the text almost starts at halfway the page.
With google I found info about the MLA package. However this seems like the opposite of the above, since the header the title and the text get so crowed right on top (not sure if the printer will print everything at top) and the font for each is the same, so it looks really flat.
Ideally I would like something that would allow me to set images (aligned left and right) at the header, another image as background to the text, and also allow for footnotes.
Maybe I'm asking too much...?

Thank you for any suggestions.